MT 16:13-20

Matthew in the Margins…12th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017

Our local government rates (taxes) arrived today. Never welcome, but at least we can afford to pay them. Others in our community are asking questions like, ‘How am I going to pay them?’, ‘Where’s my next meal coming from?’, ‘Am I ever going to get a job?’, ‘Which bridge can I safely sleep under tonight?’, ‘Should I leave my abusive partner?’, & many more. We all live, & maybe, die, with big nagging questions of our own. Questions important in our own lives may help us preach questions important to Jesus. Like today’s, ‘Who are people saying I am?’, then, “Who do you say I am?” Questions can be more enlightening than some answers!

We’re in Caesarea Philippi, where Herod (undeservingly called ‘Great’!) had built a temple in honour of Augustus. ‘Sucking up’ to Caesar!’ Raising the question, ‘Who really rules?’ Caesars, or would-be’s, strutting the stage where we live, or somewhere else? Or, God? Answers to Jesus’ 1st question show people struggling to recognise the God in Him. Despite YHWH pointing towards Him for centuries. A question for us is, ‘Would we have recognised this unorthodox Messiah with His unique rule from the bottom up, rather than the top down, back then?’ A second question for us is, ‘Do we recognise Him in our lives right now?’ Which is where Jesus’ own 2nd question kicks in.

Peter’s confession that God’s Kingdom, Power, & Glory are implicit in Jesus - though later events show he’s a bit shaky about this  - is the rock on which God builds His church & His world. Anything less may become a mill-stone that will drown us or grind us down, rather than the rock on which our faith is built!

The ‘keys of the kingdom’ are in our hands now, not Peter’s! To use to open the world’s closed situations up for God & God’s people. To open us up from what we’ve locked ourselves into. To release others from what they’ve been locked in or out of.  Keys like love, joy, peace, openness, forgiveness & others like them are all in Jesus’ bunch. When God asks, “Where are those keys I’ve given you?” it’s no use us fumbling in our pockets for them, hunting around for them, looking to see if we’ve locked them in the car, or even asking others, “Have you seen those keys God gave me?” Lose them, or just not use them & they soon rust up & become unserviceable.

We once used to pray, maybe still do, to the God ‘whose service is perfect freedom…’ but our freedom only comes when we use the keys of God’s kingdom to set ourselves & others free from things that lock us in - or out!